1933 Bugatti Type 59 Grand Prix

“We’re collectors. We see objects of great beauty and we must have them.”

— Ralph Lauren (okay, not really)

Lauren does not collect art—“You can’t drive a painting,” he said to me—and he makes much of his desire to treat his cars as more than just aesthetic objects. “I drive these cars—they don’t just sit here,” he said at least three times as we walked through two floors of classic Porsches, Ferraris, Morgans, Jaguars, Aston Martins, and Mercedes-Benzes…

And if a car doesn’t look perfect, Ralph Lauren will make it so. “These Bugattis were light blue,” he said, stopping in front of a 1934 [sic] Type 59 Grand Prix. “I said I wanted them black. I wanted to restore them as I thought they should ideally be” (source).

Sacrilege? Maybe. But you can’t deny that it is jaw-droppingly beautiful, even if it isn’t wearing Gauloises Blue.